


Yet knowing how way leads on to way

by RurouniHime



Series: Two Roads Diverged [2]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Compliant, Anger Management, Guilt, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Pining, Post-Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Pre-Slash, Regret, Self-Acceptance, Steve Has Issues, Steve Rogers & Natasha Romanov Friendship, Steve Rogers and the 21st Century, Team Dynamics, Tony Stark/Pepper Potts mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-13
Updated: 2015-06-13
Packaged: 2018-04-04 04:56:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4126186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RurouniHime/pseuds/RurouniHime
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>It’s been sixteen days since Tony gave up this gig. Sixteen days since Tony signed over the Avengers to him, officially or not. Since Tony left.</i> </p><p>In which there is broken training equipment and a lot of bottling up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Yet knowing how way leads on to way

**Author's Note:**

> Here's the formula for me, it seems: Marvel Movie comes out ==> A three-ficlet series gets written because ==> The Stony continues to support its own right to exist. 
> 
> I don't know if this formula is a trend yet. It happened to me with Winter Soldier. Now it has happened again with Ultron. I can only assume that Civil War, which is canonically based upon the ever-entrancing Tony-Steve dichotomy, will also provide.
> 
> Thank you to coffeejunkii for being my sounding board!

I.

It’s been sixteen days since Tony gave up this gig. Sixteen days since Tony signed over the Avengers to him, officially or not. Since Tony left.

Steve hits the bag, so hard the canvas splits. He keeps hitting, punch after punch, until the sand streams out, until the chain rattles continuously, until even the metal inset is dented and his knuckles ache as though they’ve been crushed.

Sixteen days. And twenty-one days since—

He hits the bag so hard the chain screams apart, sending the bag into the wall with a resounding _thwam!_ He stares at it, heaving, knowing there are other bags lined up for him, but just like the one sagging now against the wall, his will to go at another slumps out of him. He drops his hands to his sides.

Sweat sheets over his skin; his t-shirt clings, too hot. The air has kicked on, but it’s no good. Steve heads for the bench to wait it out. He drinks from his water bottle, nearly emptying it, and leans forward, bracing his elbows on his knees. More sweat drips, tiny _splots_ on the mat between his shoes. He lets himself fog out, trying to predict exactly where the next one will fall.

He’s crawled over every inch of this facility. It’s nice: the highest tech this era can offer, the most expansive training equipment, the swankiest living quarters. Most of their once-SHIELD research is done out of this place. But Steve made sure the actual mission prep was housed elsewhere; he doesn’t want his team tied in with the physicality of the organization this time. Call him paranoid. He has good reason.

The problem is, he’s been to those training rooms. He’s visited that commissary. He’s detailed it all, twice. He’s fixed issues that would soon have begun to fray threads, he’s streamlined their approach to training, he’s interviewed his fledgling teammates himself, and asked Natasha to do the same. He has even put together a schedule for team activities, because if there’s one thing he knows they did right the first time, it was getting everyone together simply so they could be themselves in the same space. Sharing a home would have been the obvious next step, but here, unlike in the Tower, they’re already there: Steve gave up his apartment after SHIELD fell apart, Natasha and Sam are here all the time anyway, and The Vision has chosen the facility as his home base while he wanders the world. Wanda Maximoff has nowhere else to go.

And Rhodes... well. Rhodes would have been staying at the Tower, if things were normal.

Steve sighs. He finishes off his first bottle and digs out the second, gulping its contents quickly. The upshot is, he’s done everything there is to do, in a little over two weeks. Frustration simmers despite the wear and tear on his body. He can’t remember if he slept two nights ago or three. He’s not tired. Everyone’s gone, it’s the weekend, and he should be gone, too, but there’s nothing he wants to see and nowhere he wants to go.

His shoulders itch. He thinks about setting up another bag, pummeling the disappointment out until he can’t even think, let alone exercise. But he knows it’ll still be there. Even the soundest pounding can’t get rid of it; when he stops, it’s right where he left it, staring him down.

Sixteen days since Tony left, and five days before that is the day Steve...

“You could try the landing pad.”

He looks up to find Wanda in the doorway. How she entered so soundlessly is, as always, beyond him, but there she is. She’s dressed in a plain shirt and leggings. Lounge clothes for the weekend.

He’s not sure what his face is doing, but she shrugs a little, and lifts her hand in a half-gesture.

“When I miss people,” she explains, stepping further into the room, “it helps to go somewhere we’ve been together.”

Steve eyes her for a long moment. She waits without fidgeting, a poise usually lacking in people her age. Steve throws his empty bottles into his bag and slings his towel over his nape. He stands, zips the bag up. She gives him a small smile as he approaches the door, straightening. Much as she does when he calls them all to order. Steve pauses just at the threshold, and looks her in the eye.

“Stay out of my head.”

Her smile vanishes. She blinks at him and steps back, but he forces her gaze, closing the space she just left. He can hear the way her heart has kicked up. Her eyes flick back and forth between his, then drop. Her chin tucks.

She opens her mouth, but he doesn’t wait. He exits the gym and heads around the corner, away. 

 

II.

On the sparring mat, Natasha fights him without reserve. He pushes back, permitting more and more from himself with every second, every kick and punch, every roll. It’s like that between them: she gives until he releases, and even though it will never be his full potential, not against her, it’s as close as he’s ever gotten outside the field of battle.

When she sweeps his legs out the sixth time, takes him down, he forgoes kipping up and lies flat on the mat, limbs splayed. His back feels clammy; already he’s leaving a sweaty mess.

Natasha walks halfway around him, then flops down into a butterfly at his side. She strips the elastic band from her hair and shakes it out. Pulls her hair up again. Her breathing comes unsteadily; he’s worked her hard. They’ve worked each other.

“Alright?” she says.

He laughs, quick, more of a sniff. It’s cooler down here. Maybe he just won’t move again. “I’d say watch your non-dominant arm. But you’re just trying to trip me up.”

“And I’d say watch your back leg. But.” She falls momentarily sideways and wrestles their water off the edge of the mat, then hands him a bottle. He sets it aside. He’d have to get up to drink it.

“Maybe we should quit trying to fool each other,” he says. It’s… not really to her. 

She waggles her head back and forth, working out the cricks. “Okay by me. We can still fool the kiddies anyway.”

The ceiling is flawless, monstrous tiles spanning the breadth of it, hemmed in by tasteful and utilitarian borders. There’s very little to notice up there, and he feels a deep, creeping disgust for it.

“This team,” he says.

“What about it?”

“Been a team for thirty-eight days now.”

She nods. He can feel her eyes on him, much like another set of eyes, when their youthful owner thinks he’s not looking. His resentment spikes suddenly, and he tenses, forcing himself up into a sitting position. He snags his water at last.

“You want to do more hand-to-hand with them?”

“They’re all lacking,” he says.

“Some of them don’t need it.”

“They _all_ need it.” It comes out bitter, and the air changes, very slightly.

“You don’t like her.”

Steve snorts softly. “You do?”

Natasha sits back, bracing with both arms. “I’ll admit to some reservations. She did help us.”

Steve shrugs. “They both did.” His shoulder twinges, and he rolls it once, then again.

“I think she benefits the team.”

That’s Natasha. She can and always will use the questionable tools when they’re on offer, even when she’s not certain they won’t blow back on her. She’s made a lifestyle out of keeping just ahead of the explosion.

Only she couldn’t, this time. None of them could.

“She hasn’t done anything to threaten us since,” Natasha goes on, looking at him carefully. Assessing, but it’s more than that. Steve wonders if she’s thinking about her own indoctrination. It must have taken years before she was fully trusted by anyone except Clint. Though, Steve suspects Coulson trusted her sooner than even she realized.

“You cozy up to her, then,” he says at last. “One of us should be able to.”

Natasha caps her water bottle, then uncaps it again and takes another swig. “It’s kind of hard to play well when your leader hates you,” she says, offhand.

He _doesn’t_ hate Wanda, is the thing. He doesn’t question her loyalties like he might have, despite telling himself again and again that it would be prudent to do so. He’s gone over that track in great detail, threading through the tangles, evaluating his team’s strengths and weaknesses, their dangers to themselves and each other. He’s come to the conclusion that all Wanda really wants is a family again. Like he did. And like it was with him, it’s too soon, he can see her grasping at ropes against the grief, but that’s all she’s looking for: people she can like, and rely on like she did. A home base.

He just doesn’t want to give it to her.

“It has been forty-three days,” he says, “since I attacked my friend on the suggestion of a kid who’d wanted us dead.”

Natasha doesn’t say anything immediately. Steve doesn’t expect her to. What can you say to that? It could be the worst thing he’s ever done, and the farther away he gets from it, the larger, the darker it grows.

 _Why_ had he given Wanda Maximoff so much credence? What she said had made sense at the time. The worst horrors had made sense, after Ultron. Steve crumples his bottle, and then, before it breaks, heaves it across the room. It bashes apart against the wall, splattering water in all directions. Natasha watches it, her head turned.

Eventually she looks down. She seems to be studying her hands where they hang between her thighs. “Given what you had to work with, it wasn’t the biggest jump you could have made.”

“Oh, it was pretty damn big.” She wasn’t there. She never saw the leap, the dents in the Tower walls, the strength he had to use to wrench his shield out of the metal once he’d thrown it. Hell, even Thor had come to Tony’s rescue, and yes, he’d been granted knowledge none of them had, but it was his own lack of forethought that nailed Steve to the floor. The willingness to believe the worst of Tony, and to punish him for it.

“It could have gone either way,” Natasha says. “Ultron could have been our real savior. And The Vision could have turned on us as easily as breathing.”

“No,” Steve states. “He couldn’t have.” Because Tony had made JARVIS. Tony had crafted the mind, the personality, had taught the child, maybe without realizing. If he’d had time with Ultron, he might have succeeded there as well. But instead of considering the monumental achievement that had come before, Steve had only allowed for the mistake. And if he’d had his way, he really _would_ have killed JARVIS. Even Ultron had failed to do that.

“Yeah,” Natasha says finally, as if the word possesses a great weight. After a moment, “Tony’s not infallible, though. None of us are.”

 _Especially me,_ Steve thinks. He feels sick, the kind of ache he gets from working out too long, from running his body into the ground and then pushing it a mile further. “He wants to quit.”

Natasha goes quiet. 

“He as much as said so,” Steve continues. “He wants to give it up and live.” 

He can’t tell if he’s startled her or… or if she’s just waiting.

“I don’t want him to,” he admits to the mat in front of him. He’s been admitting it to himself in the darkness of his bedroom for weeks, but this time it can’t be unheard. “I don’t want to do this alone.”

She could easily say he isn’t alone. He’s surrounded by friends. Brothers and sisters in arms. She could also interpret what he really means, and say that out loud, too. Just the thought of hearing it makes his stomach roll, and this time, he’s disgusted with himself. She doesn’t say anything, leaving him to think it instead, to really think about Tony as he hasn’t since the farm.

He fears Tony Stark. He’s afraid of Tony’s tech, afraid of his breathtaking knowledge, afraid of the fiery potential Tony plunges himself into without weighing it first. Steve’s terrified of speed he can’t match, of cliffs he is constantly being pushed over; he’ll never be completely comfortable in this age, because of Tony Stark. 

But he doesn’t, in fact, _fear_ Tony. If it were really Ultron he was mad about, he’d be furious with Bruce, too, and he isn’t. He doesn’t feel anything near to this intensity for Bruce. God, Steve is not a monster for what he really feels. It appalls him that part of him still believes he is monstrous, to the bone. He has adapted to everything else in this era so readily, but this one acceptance about himself eludes him. When had he become so foreign, so afraid of who he’s become, that he choked the people he cares about with it?

The person he cares about.

It may not be out loud, but it’s still an admission. Steve draws a shaky breath. “I can’t come at him clearly. Not him.”

He can’t read Natasha as well as he’d like; she’s too self-aware. But he can tell she’s searching, and abruptly he’s afraid of what he’s going to let her find. 

He gets to his feet with effort. The room has cooled considerably, chilling him through his soaked shirt. He shivers. “It’s alright,” he says. “I’ll stop taking it out on her.”

Wanda reminds him of everything he did wrong, and of the man, the friend, who clapped him on the shoulder in spite of it and wished him the best of luck in a venture that should have been theirs.

“Steve.” He hears her get up quickly, half expects to feel her hand on his shoulder. A friend, trying, for a friend. 

He can’t let this—this place, these people, this _team_ —be his alone.

“I’m fine,” he offers, turning long enough to meet her eye. His smile is almost cathartic. Some part of him knows what he has to do, and knowing, as Tony would say, is half the battle.

 

III.

Fifty days after he fought Tony like an enemy, Steve dials his number.

“Captain, my captain,” Tony answers after the third ring. He sounds curious.

Steve’s first impulse is to say ‘Stark,’ to step immediately off the front and raise his shield between them. “Tony, hey,” he says instead. Pauses. “Uh, Steve.”

Tony’s hesitation is almost nil. “Hey, Steve. How’s it shaking? Kids rubbing you raw?”

Steve smiles, unable to stop. “They’re a handful.”

“Don’t I know it, Rhodey is such a trolly little brat, don’t be afraid to paddle his ass when he sasses you.”

“Ping pong or tennis racket?” Because it’s so easy to quip with Tony. He’d forgotten. It comes naturally, rushing back like a river. His chest aches, raw, and that’s a surprise.

Tony laughs, an explosion of sound. His voice gets louder. Maybe he had Steve on speaker and has now picked up the phone. “Atta boy, Cap. You and me, we should lead seminars for HR. We’d get results.”

The suggestion of doing anything with Tony, just Tony, warms Steve more than is warranted. He allows himself a single, deep breath. He has to pull back, he’s lunging too far ahead too fast. 

“So,” Tony says into the silence. “Why the call? Not that you can’t call.”

“I was just thinking.” Steve’s subconscious has apparently practiced this, without his knowledge. The words come out and he feels like he’s riding the crest of a fast-moving wave, watching the shore approach and not quite caring about the reckless speed. “Of coming into the city this weekend. Wondered if you might be around.”

“I—FRIDAY, am I around?”

A female voice answers, muted. “You are.” 

“I am,” Tony confirms, and there’s something about his tone, something… eager? Not quite that, but something. Steve can just picture Tony’s decisive nod, and wonders if he is smiling, too.

“Good,” he says. “Good. Drinks tomorrow night?”

“Sure.” Tony doesn’t say he won’t be ‘drinking’ with Steve, or that he still understands that ‘drinks’ is a much more general term between them. Steve exhales silently, the potential millstone slipping down their backs without ever catching. “Why don’t you come to the Tower at… seven. Is that a normal time?”

“Anytime’s fine.”

“Seven,” Tony repeats.

“Seven it is.”

 

IV.

Steve knocks on the penthouse door at 7:05, and then waits, rocking from foot to foot, hands shoved in the pockets of his slacks. The good manners his mama kneaded into him won’t allow him to eat up more time, but his afternoon was a struggle: walking the distance from Grand Central to the Tower too early, veering away, retreating to a café to wait, unable to sit still once he was there. Circling the Tower with coffee in hand as the sun slowly sank.

But the house lets him in, as it always has, and Steve is halfway through thanking JARVIS when he remembers. “FRIDAY,” he amends. His throat burns with the inescapable understanding that he’ll never hear JARVIS’ voice again, here.

“It’s no trouble, Steve,” FRIDAY responds easily. The formality of her predecessor is quite absent. It’s like a death. Steve shuts his eyes and breathes against it for a moment.

“Welcome,” Tony says, entering the foyer with purpose, and glasses in hand. He hands one to Steve. It turns out to be cranberry flavored, no burn. Steve swigs it right down, and Tony pauses, his own tumbler poised at his mouth. Steve feels himself being looked over. “So, when you said drinks—”

“No.” He clears his throat. “Sorry.”

Tony shrugs. He beckons Steve forward, then pads away from him on bare feet.

Steve doesn’t know what he’s doing. His jacket itches. His stomach is rung tight as a rag. He makes himself survey the line of Tony’s spine, the breadth of his shoulders under gray dress shirt—untucked, unbuttoned, sleeves rolled—the bend and bow of muscle beneath cloth. Something inside surges, swells into a knotted heat, but something else backs away just as sharply, leaving a bitter flavor clinging to Steve’s tongue. _He’s a man,_ it insists. _A man, for god’s sake!_

“I know that,” Steve grits, too softly to be heard, and follows Tony into the loft.

It turns out Tony is as stiff as he is. Somehow, that makes it easier to loosen, and Steve finds himself talking more, about very little, until the hours have passed and the drinks have been drunk. A set of empty cartons lies scattered across the coffee table by the time the pall finally puffs away for good. Steve licks leftover katsu sauce from his lip, and snags the last tempura shrimp, and Tony laughs into his napkin, hitching his legs up onto the couch as Steve feeds him the humor he has never, up until now, been able to find during the new team’s training sessions.

He doesn’t ask Tony to come back. Tony doesn’t offer. Neither do they discuss his absence. Tony is quieter than usual, and languid. There’s little fight in him, which is not the norm. But eventually he gestures with his whole body again, knees swaying and toes curling into the couch cushion. He smiles readily as he listens, and a sparkle Steve has dearly missed comes back into his eyes.

Later, and during a conversation with Rhodes, Steve will realize that he is wrong: this quiet had nothing to do with warming up to each other again. This quiet was the gaping, concussive wave of Tony and Pepper imploding. Now, he just grins back and clinks their glasses. Tony’s fingertips bump his. Steve lets himself relish it.

~fin~

**Author's Note:**

> Because I have to wonder: how exactly does Steve _deal_ with that fight after the fact? How does he come to terms with the decisions he made and the information he based them on? It's got to gall him. Why not on more than one level? Steve's a complicated person.
> 
> I have a lot of thinky thoughts on Wanda's addition to the team, and I don't think things would immediately run smoothly. In other news, we'll be getting back to Clint eventually.
> 
> Title once again lifted from Robert Frost's _The Road Not Taken_.


End file.
